Comet C/2017 T1 Heinze: an image (30 Dec. 2017)

It is always great to look for comets during the Christmas season. Comet C/2017 T1 Heinze is the brightest one we see these days: we imaged it several times, enjoying its nice, dusty tail.

Comet C/2017 T1 Heinze. 30 Dec. 2017

Comet C/2017 T1 Heinze was spotted on 2 Oct. 2017 by astronomer Ari Heinze during the activities of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. At that time, is was faint (mag. 18 or so), but week after week it brightened, while it approached both the Sun and our planet. It will reach perihelion next 21 Feb., while tomorrow, 4 Jan., it will touch the minimum distance from us (33 millions of km). Bob King wrote a nice article about this comet for Sky & Telescope.

The image above comes from the “sigma clipping” combination of 28, 180-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely taken with the 16″-f/3.75 Tenagra III (“Pearl”) robotic unit part of Tenagra Observatories in Arizona. The telescope tracked the comet during exposures.

If everyone reading this right now would donate something, our fundraiser would be done in a few days. Please, donate and receive stunning, LIMITED EDITION images with the Tiangong 1 and International Space Station above Rome and one of a potentially hazardous asteroid taken by the Virtual Telescope, specifically made for supporters like you!